Somewhere in the middle of a hectic Monday morning, Karen sent one of those email forwards that are meant to brighten your day. The email was (supposedly) written by an older gentleman who had operated a business for years while content to keep his mobile phone in his golf bag in the garage, who became annoyed with a GPS telling him what to do, and who certainly didn’t comprehend Twitter. It concluded with an emphatic statement that many older people are content with what they still consider to be the advanced technology of cordless telephones and garage door openers, and that those younger and more technologically adept should accept this and move on.
It was a good laugh.
I remember the jokes that used to circulate about how friends and family had difficulty programming their VCRs. I remember thinking that it wasn’t that complicated. I listen to Karen periodically muse to her friends that she can’t keep up with which social network is my current favorite, because I have too many. I pounce on the latest updates on my iPhone, and she shrugs her shoulders and contents herself with what she needs to know. I listen to myself with amusement as I lapse into geek-speak when one of my friends has a technical issue, to which I typically know a solution.
My parents, however, don’t understand the concept of Facebook.
It occurs to me that my generation has, arguably, seen the greatest number of life-altering technological advances of any in human history. Actually, let me qualify that: we’ve seen the greatest number of information-based technological advancements of any in human history. I can trace back with wonder the changes in the way I live my day-to-day life through my 30-ish years on the planet. When I was an undergrad, having a computer in your dorm room was unusual. Most of us walked down to the computer lounge that was in the wing of our dorm, plugged a 3 1/2″ floppy into the drive, and hacked away at our term papers with software that was either nameless or whose name escapes my memory. And we were glad we no longer had to do it on typewriters while slinging whiteout.
By the time I was a junior, I had a pager. My grandmother used to try to leave messages on that number like an answering machine, and couldn’t understand why it didn’t go through. Then I had a huge bag-phone in my car with an antennae mounted on the back glass and was feeling pretty spiffy about 60 free minutes…you get the idea.
Now, my phone literally can manage my entire day. I’ve heard that the average iPhone, in fact, has more processing power that the computers used to generate the special effects for the original Star Wars films.
While I joke with my friends and family about what I perceive as their technological ineptitude, however, I feel concerned for those older than us. I feel concerned because I wonder if there has ever been a time in our history in which our elders have been left behind so quickly…disregarded as though they have no idea about life. I wonder if, in our quasi-arrogant self-assurance of possessing and being intimate with technology that our parents could never have imagined, that we de-value the wisdom about life that our parents and grandparents have.
After fussing with email and weather forecasts and so forth on my iPad Monday morning, I settled into the beginning of the week by looking at my daughter. I watched her sleeping face, and thought about how wonderfully superior a creation she is to any metal and glass device that I hold in my hand. I think about how the wisdom of those who have gone before us is invaluable to how we raise and treat those who come after us. I think about how the core of the human condition hasn’t changed, and about how we endanger ourselves of repeating the mistakes of history because we are so obsessed with our present.
I think about all of the times that I couldn’t be bothered with my elders, and how I’ve lived to regret that choice every time. Every. Single. Time.
Progress is a beautiful thing, when taken as a next step to our humanity, our arts, our culture. Should we attempt to replace those things…to replace our history…with the progress of today and dreams of tomorrow, though…then we’ve torn away parts of our souls. We need to be careful in discarding those pieces of ourselves so flippantly, because I’m not entirely certain that we can get them back when we do.
Should a day come when our technology is no longer with us, we will still be with each other. Humanity can’t be fixed with software upgrades and new apps. Its much deeper in its problems and its beauty.
We need to know what to do with that.
Photo Attribution: brendahallowes